Praise Pours In For Dairy Queen Manager Who Helped A Blind Man

Joey Prusak has been a busy man since his act of kindness went viral. CBS Minnesota is among the TV outlets that have spotlighted his story.

Minnesota.CBSlocal.com

Originally published on September 20, 2013 11:12 am

Today's good-guy award goes to Joey Prusak of Hopkins, Minn.

Prusak, a Dairy Queen manager, back on Sept. 10 saw a woman pick up a $20 bill that a blind customer dropped. When Prusak told her to give it back, she refused. So, the 19-year-old manager refused to serve her. He then took $20 of his own money and gave it to the visually impaired customer.

"Other customers saw what happened and one of them wrote an email to Dairy Queen. The email was forwarded to the owner of the store, who posted it on the board for everybody to see.

"A co-worker was impressed by what happened and posted the message on Facebook, where others found it and shared it. Joey's story is now all over the Internet."

The story filtered up to billionaire Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway Inc. owns Dairy Queen. "He called [Thursday] and thanked me for being a role model for all the other employees and people in general," Prusak tells The Associated Press.

The wire service adds that Dean Peters, a spokesman for International Dairy Queen, said the company is figuring out how to reward Prusak.

"While WCCO was on-site [Thursday], a woman ran up to Prusak with an envelope of money saying it was for his college fund. Then an anonymous man from Crystal dropped in. 'I thought it was pretty amazing, so I drove down here after I read it,' he said. 'I decided I'd patronize their business and thought he deserved five times what he paid out.' ...

"Prusak was on Glenn Beck's radio show, and Beck offered to buy a franchise that Prusak would run. Prusak's not sure how serious he was, but he's got a lot of options to weigh.

"He also got a call from the Minnesota Wild, too. He'll have a suite for 20 of his closest friends Saturday night."